Healthcare. Is this he thin edge of the wedge?

You seem mighty cross paddyanne. It can’t be good for your blood pressure! I was talking to my stepfather on Sunday about ‘matters SNP’. He takes a pragmatic viewpoint really but is definitely not a fan of that party. He thinks the tide is turning for their support. He feels she’s missed the boat regarding Indy2 as cracks in their competence are not only widening but becoming apparent to more voters now and good governance has been missing for a while now. Hey ho.
Time will tell I suppose.

Growstuff no everyone gets exactly the same treatment, same doctors, hospitals, beds etc. it is just in some cases the state pays and in others the compulsory insurance pays. Generally your employer pays half of your insurance.

Posted on social media today after the BBC story about the wealthy paying for healthcare.
Not exact but I cant find the post.The SNP government will not be charging ANYONE for healthcare we are committed to the original ethos of an accessable NHS free at point of use.This is why we have Free prescriptions ,free eye and dental checks ,free dental care for young people and free personal care for the elderly ;
This exact same statement was made and braodcast before the 2014 referendum by Jackie Baillie(labour) as part of the fear tactics of the Better Together campaign .It wasn't true then and its not true now ."

The BBC should be held to account for broadcasting scare stories that they know to be lies.Sadly so many people believed them that they would lose their pensions and we would have to leave the EU if we voted yes that we lost .
Look how that turned out !!
I'll be as TRIBAL as I like thank you ,I'm sick of the lies and misinformation thats on here particularly from "URM* Who seems to believe she knows more about Scotland than the Scots .If these were all True would Nicola Sturgeon be on her 5TH Prime Minister since she been in office? WE really arent stupid unlike some other parts of the DIS united kingdom

We definitely have a 2 tier system here in Australia. Lots of private hospitals too. If you are what they think of as rich you have to pay a health levy if you choose not to take out private health cover. Private health cover doesn’t actually cover you for that much, you still have to pay the difference between what the hospitals charge and what the insurance will pay you back. Not good.

growstuff

Urmstongran

Actually not a bad idea to charge for food whilst in hospital! Even a nominal sum of £1 a day would help the coffers as in-patients would be eating at home anyway. Probably get told now it would be too bureaucratic. Seems most ideas seem to get labelled that way these days.

Not if the food is anything like I've experienced!

Last time I was in hospital my partner was sent off to the onsite M & S Simply Food to buy me something to eat. I was starving after having fasted 18 hours and there was nothing on the menu I could eat.

My nightmare is that I will end up in hospital and not be able to eat anything. I have even told my doctor that I dread the thought of it.

There is (currently) no reason why I should be in hospital. My notes would tell them what my issues are, but I still dread the thought of being force fed "hospital" food - and then being ill because of it.

dragonfly Do those who have paid get preferential treatment in any way?

In the Netherlands everyone uses the same hospitals, staff etc but those earning above a certain amount pay into a health insurance. It works extremely well. There are no private hospitals and in the same way there are no private schools.
Btw taxes and National Insurance are higher than here providing better health care for all.

I would have fewer issues with a private system if it were wholly private. If it trained its own staff, ran its own clinics and didn't use NHS equipment or allow people to pay for a consultation and then queue jump onto NHS treatment.

That won't happen, of course, for all sorts of reasons, so therefore I am very much against it.

I think if the better off do have to pay they should be able to take out insurance with employers paying half. This system works well in the Netherlands. Retired people do not pay.

dragonfly46

Growstuff when I was diagnosed with breast cancer I had 2 mammograms, an ultrasound, a CT scan and an MRI. This was all on the NHS. They were hardly making money out of me. It was standard procedure!

I'm not talking about NHS patients.

I had more than that because my cancer was quite rare and I hate to think how much it cost.

B9exchange

The NHS is not free, it never has been, but the NI contributions that were supposed to fund it have never been ring fenced, and modern treatments and drugs are so expensive that some form of rationing is needed (and indeed being brought in, no hip replacements for the obese etc) or we will have to go down the route of extra health insurance to top it up.

As mentioned above, the last thing the NHS needs is yet another layer of administration to manage contributions towards hospital food.

I agree about admin for NHS food. It would be an absolute nightmare.

As for rationing, I wonder how many people would really be happy if they were told that treatments and drugs wouldn't be available, if (for example) they are over a certain age. I can't remember the exact figure, but more money is spent on people in the last year or so of their lives. What about stopping trying to save premature babies? Or disabled people, who can't work anyway? The NHS could save billions, if it stopped treating people who aren't expected to live longer than (say) five years - not that I'm suggesting it, but that's what people are saying when they talk about efficiency. I find it horrifying. If we want a health system which treats everybody, we have to pay for it.

Growstuff when I was diagnosed with breast cancer I had 2 mammograms, an ultrasound, a CT scan and an MRI. This was all on the NHS. They were hardly making money out of me. It was standard procedure!

That logic is flawed though growstuff because you’re assuming that staff who currently work partly privately would opt to work wholly for the NHS. They wouldn’t. A parallel wholly private system would operate, and many would choose to work wholly privately. There will never not be a private system for those who can afford it.

foxie48

Growstuff I can't help thinking that over hearing a telephone conversation whilst waiting for treatment and your OH having your GP's diagnosis confirmed with a privately funded MRI constitutes a scam, but you are entitled to your opinion. My point is that using private medical facilities to enable people to be treated more quickly can save the NHS money and most importantly, improve the quality of their lives. If it puts some money into shareholders pockets, I can live with that more easily then making sick and injured people wait until the NHS can provide the treatment they need. Using spare capacity in private facilities to reduce waiting lists seems completely sensible to me.

But it doesn't save the NHS money because there is a limit to the number of staff available, nor does it reduce waiting lists. If staff are working privately, they can't work for the NHS at the same time. It's queue jumping for those who can afford it and just means NHS patients have to wait longer.

The NHS is not free, it never has been, but the NI contributions that were supposed to fund it have never been ring fenced, and modern treatments and drugs are so expensive that some form of rationing is needed (and indeed being brought in, no hip replacements for the obese etc) or we will have to go down the route of extra health insurance to top it up.

As mentioned above, the last thing the NHS needs is yet another layer of administration to manage contributions towards hospital food.

From MSM's Fact Check today:

The 'NHS Leak' story being pushed by BBC Scotland today is a virtual carbon copy of an anti-SNP smear the broadcaster ran two days before the 2014 Indyref. Here's the news report from 2014 followed by today's story. It's literally the same tactic, even down to the wording.

Growstuff I can't help thinking that over hearing a telephone conversation whilst waiting for treatment and your OH having your GP's diagnosis confirmed with a privately funded MRI constitutes a scam, but you are entitled to your opinion. My point is that using private medical facilities to enable people to be treated more quickly can save the NHS money and most importantly, improve the quality of their lives. If it puts some money into shareholders pockets, I can live with that more easily then making sick and injured people wait until the NHS can provide the treatment they need. Using spare capacity in private facilities to reduce waiting lists seems completely sensible to me.

Most of the pension used to be stopped after you had been in hospital 6 weeks, anyone under pension age would have any benefits they were getting stopped after six weeks. It was meant to be to stop you being paid twice by the state for your support, pension benefits and being housed fed etc by the taxpayer through the NHS. I suspect the thinking was, that if you had been in hospital six weeks, you were unlikely to return home anyway - and I am sure that was probably true in the early days of the NHS.

Currently Attendance Allowance and other disability benefits will stop after 28 days, I think. Here is a link to the rules
www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Going-into-Hospital-and-benefits/Benefits-that-stop-being-paid-if-you-go-into-hospi

Kim19

I seem to remember my Granny had to hand in her pension book to the hospital once she had been in hospital six(?) Weeks. Anybody else remember something similar? Also, if a payment was introduced for the 'wealthy' what's the betting a whole new level of admin would be introduced to manage this? That's my reckoning.......

Yes.
We had to help with her rent etc!

foxie48

Growstuff In what way are MRIs a money making scam? A CT scan may be cheaper but not if it needs to be followed up with an MRI, which I understand is better as showing certain types of injury or cancer.

It was a money-making scam for the lady in the waiting room who was booked in for an MRI. It was in the Breast Unit and MRIs aren't usually necessary to diagnose breast cancer. A mammogram followed by an ultra-sound (which is what the insurance company would pay for) and biopsy are enough.

I needed MRIs because I had lobular cancer, which is quite rare and doesn't form the classic lumps and one of the cancers was very small.

My OH paid for a private MRI scan on his knee, which told him exactly the same as the GP had done.

M0nica

The cost of running a system to collect £1 a day for food would cost more to run than it would bring in. A minimum charge of £5 a day would need to be the bottom line.

I am not advocating it, in fact I oppose it, but I am looking at it it purely from the administrative point of view.

True.
And how would it work if a patient is Nil by Mouth, on a drip for nutrition if they are unable to eat, on a ventilator in ICU etc?

It is unworkable.

The food waste must be huge, though.

We were in A&E recently; because the wait is so long (days in a few cases) a trolley came round with food, sandwiches, tea, orange juice, biscuits, for patients only. So anyone accompanying a patient went hungry as there were few facilities for anything except a vending machine with crisps, chocolate bars and soft drinks.

Kim19

I seem to remember my Granny had to hand in her pension book to the hospital once she had been in hospital six(?) Weeks. Anybody else remember something similar? Also, if a payment was introduced for the 'wealthy' what's the betting a whole new level of admin would be introduced to manage this? That's my reckoning.......

Yes, I remember that too, or do we have faulty memories?

Growstuff In what way are MRIs a money making scam? A CT scan may be cheaper but not if it needs to be followed up with an MRI, which I understand is better as showing certain types of injury or cancer.

Whitewavemark2

It isn’t the NHS if you are paying. The principle of “free at the point of use” is broken.

Yes, quite.

Attached is a response from one Prof Kerr. Hope it's legible. It says who he is in the blurb before what he's quoted as saying.

The cost of running a system to collect £1 a day for food would cost more to run than it would bring in. A minimum charge of £5 a day would need to be the bottom line.

I am not advocating it, in fact I oppose it, but I am looking at it it purely from the administrative point of view.